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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 30, 2026

Visualizing Visual Adaptation

Visualizing Visual Adaptation

Published on: April 24, 2017

Determinants of Global Color-Based Selection in Human Visual Cortex.

Mandy V Bartsch¹, Carsten N Boehler², Christian M Stoppel³

¹Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, 39118 Magdeburg, Germany.

Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)

|April 29, 2014

Summary

Global feature attention prioritizes attended features, but competition isn't critical. Brain activity shows color selection occurs in extrastriate cortex, independent of feature competition, depending instead on target discrimination.

Keywords:

MEG attention color human visual

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Visual Attention Research

Background:

Feature attention can operate globally, influencing unattended stimuli.
Previous models emphasized feature competition in global attention mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the role of feature competition in global feature selection.
To determine if target discrimination is necessary for global color attention.

Main Methods:

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings in human participants.
A color/shape discrimination task with irrelevant probes in the unattended visual field.
Analysis of brain responses to probes based on target-defining colors.

Main Results:

Global color selection involves sequential modulations in extrastriate cortex (lateral occipital complex, V3/V4).
These modulations occurred regardless of feature competition in the focus of attention.
Modulations were present for task-relevant colors outside the focus and eliminated during simple onset detection.

Conclusions:

Global color-based attention relies on target discrimination.
Feature competition is not critical for global feature selection.
Neural mechanisms of global attention are independent of competition within the focus.